Riders' visit short on entertainment

B.C. Lions’ president and CEO Denis Skulsky watches from the sideline as the team plays the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Photograph by: DARRYL DYCK
, THE CANADIAN PRESS

VANCOUVER - It’s not as bad as it looks for the B.C. Lions’ ticketing department.

There’s no way all 33,196 fans who squandered a day of their lives Sunday watching what passes for Canadian Football League “entertainment” this season will be collecting the free ticket they earned when the Lions lost to the Saskatchewan Roughriders 20-16 on guaranteed-win night.

It’s easy to make fun of Lions president Dennis Skulsky for guaranteeing the victory, and certainly the Roughriders were far worse at containing their laughter post-game than they were containing B.C. quarterback Kevin Glenn and running back Andrew Harris.

But the worst failure for the Lions’ franchise on Sunday, the most discouraging and alarming, was not B.C.’s inability to beat the defending Grey Cup champions, but its inability to entertain and excite fans.

They made no new ones.

The entertainment ended with kick and punt returner Tim Brown, who scored the Lions’ only touchdown on a 75-yard, first-quarter punt return.

It was a game to forget when it should have been a defining night for the Lions. Maybe it will turn out to be so if the 5-4 team, stuck in the merciless West Division, doesn’t do better in the second half of the CFL season than it did in the first.

Even from the Roughriders’ perspective, no one who loves offensive, fluid football will remember Sunday for anything beyond the victory and embarrassment inflicted on Skulsky.

If this really is the dawn of a golden era for the CFL, King Midas plays on defence.

“Certainly one of the reasons for this guarantee ... was to try to get this game to have some excitement,” Skulsky, vaguely recognizable despite the egg on his face, said after the game. “Unfortunately, I can’t put a check mark in that column and say we delivered. It’s just tougher slogging right now for all teams and the league.

“As a governor in this league, I do have a concern over that. We can chalk it up to a whole bunch of things — from the penalties, to some of the rule changes, to the disparity between East and West. For whatever reason, the games just haven’t been as compelling. Offences seem to be a step behind.”

The Lions’ offence was an area code behind on Sunday.

Glenn’s last effective march was midway through the second quarter, when a 90-yard drive petered out with a sack and a 16-yard field goal by Paul McCallum.

In the 35 minutes that followed, right until relief quarterback Travis Lulay put his hands on the ball with 40 seconds remaining and the Lions, needing a touchdown, on their 32-yard line, B.C. generated one first down. It was 12 yards on a Glenn shovel pass to Brown.

The offence went two-plays-and-out eight times in nine possessions. It ran 25 plays and gained a total of 44 yards.

The game itself featured only one offensive touchdown. But it had seven field goals and a punt single. There were 24 penalties, four television timeouts in one eight-minute spell and a handful of injury timeouts. Were they not cheering against each other, Lion and Roughrider fans would have had nothing to cheer about for most of the game.

“There was no entertainment in that football game,” McCallum said. “It was a bad football game. The only thing that was entertaining was our special teams. If all the facets aren’t there, it’s hard to win.”

“We didn’t score one touchdown today,” Lions’ receiver Shawn Gore said. “That’s disgraceful for the offence we have. We definitely didn’t show our best. Even when we had big plays — Timmy Brown with a great return — that’s a spark. But we didn’t do anything with it. We weren’t able to keep the flame going.”

Given the bleak circumstances, the guy most likely to ignite the offence, Lulay, stood on the sideline until Glenn finally left the game with a leg injury late in the fourth quarter.

Last week, when Glenn orchestrated a 33-17 win against the Toronto Argos, B.C. coach Mike Benevides decided to test drive Lulay and his repaired shoulder with the Lions ahead 10-0 in the second quarter. Lulay was used but not needed.

Sunday, when the performance of the offence screamed for him, Lulay was anchored to the sideline.

The Roughriders won with their backup quarterback, chunky Tino Sunseri, who completed eight second-half passes after Saskatchewan starter Darian Durant suffered a hand injury late in the first half.

“I certainly considered it,” Benevides said of using Lulay earlier. “But, really, it was about the run game. It had nothing to do with Kevin. I thought about it but there was no need for it right now.”

Lulay said Benevides told him on Saturday that the Lions would “probably ride Kevin tomorrow unless something happens.”

Why would that be when Lulay was used so superfluously last week?

“The preparation was different, the opponent we were going to see was different and I just felt that Kevin’s work ... against the kind of defence they play, gave us a better opportunity,” Benevides said. “But I did have a conversation with (Travis) that if I need him, he’s got to go.”

He went in too late to make a difference.

On guaranteed-win night, the Lions were dismal offensively and lost their third home game this season. Before that, they had lost only twice in more than two years at BC Place since their renovated stadium reopened.

“The question is: Would I do it all over again?” Skulsky, the former newspaperman, said before anyone else could ask the question. “Absolutely. This is not something you do every day, every week, every year. I don’t know when we’ll ever do it again, but I stand by the decision. I believe in those guys in that dressing room. The good news is we have nine games left to play.”

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